Future Of Database Management: NoSQL And NewSQL

By: OnlineCmag Team | Last Updated: 16th October 2017

The database management system(DBMS) is a software which helps the user interact with the database. Simply put, a database is the collection of data in form of tables, queries, reports and similar objects. Most of the databases that are in the market today are relational databases. Oracle’s MySQL, IBM’s DB2, Microsoft’s Access are all relational databases. A relational database is a digital database in which data is organised in tables with each row of the table having a specific key. It is far better than the earlier hierarchal databases of the past which where slow and less organised.

But, times are changing fast. Today you can be satisfied in using a relational databases which are exclusively based on the structured query language (SQL). But the future is already upon us with NoSQL and NewSQL gaining ground. With the need to store, study and manage large amounts of data these flexible and powerful standards are ready to win over traditional database languages.

While today’s databases provide well-defined structure and accessibility, they have less capabilities to handle Big Data. This set the situation up perfectly for the rise of these modern databases which don’t even require a highly ordered database plan.

NoSQL and NewSQL – Details

NoSQL, also called Not Only SQL is a modified version of the existing SQL databases. There are several improvements in multiple aspects which cumulate and bring in the capacity to deal with larger data contexts effectively. One of such improvements is the horizontal scaling and data fetching. But this doesn’t mean the entire SQL databased are to be converted to NoSQL, and the choice is completely application oriented. In few projects SQL (the relational database model) works great with better speed and accuracy while in others NoSQL is the best. So here the problem at hand is to be keenly observed and one of these implementations is to be selected.

NewSQL, in-turn is a hybrid database management system which adds the capabilities of NoSQL to the ACID capabilities of a relational database. These systems find vast applications in the OLTP (Online Transaction Processing) section.

This truly has developed an interesting situation with established database providers feeling the heat. In addition, the data owners have an even field to choose among several distinct options. This situation led to the rise of several solutions with broader differences among each of them. These include Cassandra, HBase (column databases) Mongodb, CouchDB (document databases) Redis (key-value), VoltDB, Hypertable, Accumulo etc.

The point is that all these mentioned databases are filled with several features. So at the end of the day it all comes down to the problem in your hand. There are tools with which you can migrate between each of these and without doubt there’s going to be a lot of development in all these database management services.